


because of cafe business hours

by 1inhardt



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23235886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1inhardt/pseuds/1inhardt
Summary: what happens when caspar finds himself in the campus library
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez & Linhardt von Hevring, Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 9
Kudos: 59





	because of cafe business hours

**Author's Note:**

> idk bro i am just simply yearning

Caspar ends up in the library by accident. 

At least, that’s how it seems to Linhardt. What business does a loud jock type have in the library? Do student athletes even study or check out books?

“May I help you,” Linhardt says between a yawn. He rubs at his eyes, having fallen asleep on the job again. Not that he has anything to be awake for. Nobody really checks out books on a Wednesday night. He takes the evening shifts for a reason. 

“Yeah, hi, Linhardt, right?” Caspar says a little too loudly.

“That would be me, yes.” Linhardt looks down at his notes, at the little dribble of drool pooling in the crease of the notebook. He immediately swipes it off. Caspar doesn’t seem to notice.

“You’re in my beginner’s writing class, right?”

“Yes, as a TA.”

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.”

A pause. Then, “Anyway,” Caspar says, clearing his throat and rubbing at the back of his neck, the movement stretching his sweatshirt taut against his chest, “you work here? In the library? What kind of work do people even do in the library?”

“Yes, I work here,” Linhardt says, looking down at his notes again and picking up his discarded pencil, hoping Caspar takes the hint. “I help people check out books. Do you have books that need to be checked out?”

“Well, no.” Caspar looks up at the sign above the desk that reads “Check Out Counter,” then turns his attention toward the stairway, then the door through which he came. 

“May I help you?” Linhardt repeats.

“Is there a cafe in here? I’m supposed to meet someone there, but I got lost.”

“The cafe is upstairs, top floor, but it’s closed.”

“Closed?” Caspar’s eyebrows furrow, as if he doesn’t understand that business hours exist. “Why would it be closed?”

Linhardt feels his eyelids droop, another yawn working its way up his throat. He picks up his phone, shows the lockscreen to Caspar. “Do you see what time it is? 9 p.m. In fact, my shift is over now. Whoever told you to come to the cafe at 9 p.m. wasn’t actually interested in seeing you. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” 

Caspar stands dumbfounded and deflated as Linhardt busies himself with packing his belongings, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and clocking out. He pulls out his neatly wrapped earbuds, unraveling the wires as he walks away, ignoring Caspar who slowly follows behind him. 

“Hey,” Caspar calls after him once they’re both out the door, Linhardt already making his way up the hill to the heart of the campus. “Hey, Linhardt, wait, where are you going?” 

“To my room,” Linhardt says, not bothering to look back, one earbud already in his ear. But it doesn’t matter because Caspar catches up with no problem, barely exerting himself as he speeds up to match Linhardt’s pace. 

“Let’s go together. You live in North Hall, right?” 

Linhardt stops in his tracks, eyes narrowing. “Yes, I do. How do you know this?”

Caspar grins, his cafe meetup seemingly forgotten. “I pass you going in all the time, dude! Hold the door open for you and everything. You always say thank you, too, which is nice.” His grin turns into a frown of confusion. “Though you always ignore me when I try to talk to you.” 

“Oh,” Linhardt says, resuming his walking. “I don’t really pay attention to the people around me. I always have my earbuds in.” But the truth is he knows it’s always Caspar holding the door for him. He knows Caspar lives on the fourth floor as an RA and usually takes the Friday night patrol shifts. He knows Caspar tries to greet him when they cross paths, but he’d rather focus on his studies and not get distracted by loud, energetic boys who care more about their bodies than their brains. 

“Well,” Caspar says, contemplating, lower lip jutting out, “guess I just have to catch you before you put your earbuds in next time.” 

Linhardt glances at Caspar out of the corner of his eye, burying his hands in his pockets. He looks at Caspar’s sky blue hair, the way it sits on his head, straight and soft and feathery. Caspar doesn’t notice Linhardt’s gaze, too busy blowing puffs of hot breath into the cold air, watching it wisp and dissipate in front of him. 

“Are you here on an athletic scholarship?” The question leaves Linhardt’s mouth before he can stop himself. He likes to think he’s better than baseline assumptions, but the student body of a Division I, small liberal arts college is pretty predictable. Only student athletes and those from less-privileged backgrounds take entry level writing courses, and he knows Caspar is rich. 

Not that he has any room to talk, having grown up in a wealthy household, able to pay his way into any college if his studies didn’t go well, though they did. But he’s read about the von Bergliez family in the news, about their historical, long-term involvement with national military affairs. Caspar doesn’t seem like most of the insufferable rich kids Linhardt encounters on campus, but he can’t say he’s fond of Caspar’s association with the military, even if it’s just a part of his familial background. 

This time Caspar stops at the sudden question, and Linhardt follows suit against his will. He’s not _that_ curious to know about Caspar’s reason for being at school, so why is he waiting for an answer? 

“What makes you think that?” Caspar asks, arms crossing over his chest. Linhardt takes a small step back, suddenly noticing Caspar’s stocky build, which, of course he knew about, what with assuming he’s a student athlete and all, but…. 

Linhardt rights himself, standing up straighter. “Well, just based on your appearance, how well built you are—”

“You think I’m well built?” 

Linhardt blinks at Caspar’s growing smile. “I mean… yeah, your muscles are pretty big and kind of hard to miss.”

“Hell yeah!” Caspar yells, pumping a fist in the air, his voice echoing through the vacant parking lot beside them. Linhardt sniffs away a grimace. 

“I’ve been working so hard on my body, you know?” Caspar continues. “Like, I know I shouldn’t let my height get to me, but when all the girls insist they only date boys taller than six feet—wait, do you think that’s why I was stood up today? I thought she wouldn’t mind because I’m at least a good three inches taller than her, or maybe she forgot the cafe closes at nine? I should have gotten her number….” 

Linhardt finds himself at a loss of words, watching Caspar ramble and enthusiastically gesture with his arms. He finds himself at a loss of words when Caspar does this in class, too, but usually another student tells him to shut up. Linhardt doesn’t have it in him to stop Caspar.

“My dad told me I didn’t have to come to college, you see,” Caspar says, “because I’m not really that good at school, and I can just help out with the family work, but I need to pave a path of my own, you know? So I decided I’d come here to study business.” 

“Business?” Linhardt says, his nose wrinkling. He guesses that’s better than military affairs, but what does it matter to him? Why is he questioning Caspar’s decisions? 

“Yeah,” Caspar says, still smiling. “I’m thinking maybe I’ll open up my own gym someday, make it into a chain sort of thing.”

“You don’t need to go to school to open up a business,” Linhardt says.

“No,” Caspar says, “I don’t, but I want to do this on my own, without help from my parents or their money. This seemed like a good place to start.” 

“A liberal arts college.”

“Yeah!”

Linhardt takes a moment to look at Caspar, at the determination gleaming in his eyes, at the way his cheeks have tinged pink from excitement and the cold. He notices the couple of inches he has over Caspar, but finds Caspar to be bigger, his enthusiasm and strength overshadowing what he lacks in height. The suppressed curiosity Linhardt built up in class is satiated by their conversation, but a newfound desire to learn more about Caspar begins to consume him. He clenches his fists in his pockets, willing the feeling away, and proceeds on the path back to his room, their building. His breath leaves him in restrained gasps, fighting against the incline toward the campus, the thoughts tightening his chest. 

“You’re a history major, right?” Caspar says with a leaping stride to reach Linhardt. 

“How do you know?” 

“You said so on the first day of class when introducing yourself, remember?”

“Oh.” Right. Insufferable ice breakers. But who bothers to remember details about strangers?

“So, what inspired you to do that?” 

Linhardt frowns, suddenly questioning his decision to entertain Caspar, who looks at him with such genuine curiosity, overwhelmingly so. His natural smile, his blatant positivity and hope and _just being Caspar._ What is this small talk about majors and future aspirations and pretending to get to know each other? He feels stupid. This feels stupid. 

“Listen,” Linhardt says, picking up his pace as North Hall begins to come into view. Just a few hundred feet more until he can hide away in his room, forget about this interaction, sleep it off and wake up in the morning ready to return to his routine of dozing off in class and dozing off at work and dozing off during his meals and on his walks between buildings and in his room while he pretends to do homework. 

“Listen,” he begins again, not looking at Caspar, “do you need something from me? Extra help with class? A subtle grade boost that I won’t get caught changing? You don’t have to beat around the bush for it. I prefer when people are straightforward with me.”

Caspar furrows his eyebrows, lips slightly apart. He closes his mouth, opens it again, stops walking. “Do you think I’m trying to get something out of you?” he manages, barely louder than a whisper. 

“I mean,” Linhardt says, still walking, “yeah. Why else would you be talking to me? We aren’t exactly friends.” A hand on his shoulder pulls him back, forces him to turn around, but gently. Linhardt shies away from the heat of Caspar’s hand through his coat, the softness of his touch, like a plea, one he willingly follows. He draws his hands out of his pockets from surprise and on reflex, feels them shake from the sudden cold. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“What are _you_ doing?” Caspar says, his voice loud and strained, a weight clenching around Linhardt’s lungs. “Or rather, what are you _saying?_ You think I’m trying to get something out of you? That we aren’t friends? Doesn’t friendship have to start somewhere? Am I not allowed to talk to you?” 

Linhardt can’t bear to look at the hurt on Caspar’s face, turning his head toward the streetlamps lining the way to his room, Caspar’s room, their building. He holds his arms straight against his sides, forcing his hands to stay still. Is he not allowed to ask for clarity?

“Am I not allowed to ask for clarity?” Linhardt asks quietly, trying to use his library check out desk voice. “Why are you talking to me? Forcing all this small talk? Isn’t it obvious we have nothing in common?”

“I didn’t realize I’m only allowed to be interested in people exactly like me—not that I’ll ever find anybody exactly like me. Are you saying I should only be interested in myself? Are _you_ only interested in yourself?”

Linhardt begrudgingly acknowledges his flustered state, any retort he had prepared now caught in his throat. His chest, his lungs, his throat. He can’t take this anymore. 

“I,” Linhardt tries, but he closes his mouth, ashamed. He shouldn’t have assumed the worst from Caspar, shouldn’t have forced himself to analyze for flaws and reasons to stay away. There’s nothing wrong with Caspar. Maybe his inability to talk quietly, control his excitement in conversations, write well enough to place out of beginner’s writing, but are those things worth ignoring him over? Making him feel bad about? Linhardt has never felt like more of an asshole. 

“You know I like you, right?” Caspar says, taking a step forward. “I mean, like, I don’t really know much about you, but I want to know more. About your interests and how you spend your free time and stuff. I think we could, like, I don’t know… I just think there’s something here? I can’t really explain it? I feel drawn to you, like I need to know _more_.” 

“Oh,” Linhardt says, Caspar’s words like a punch to his stomach, every last breath extracted from his body. He raises his eyes to Caspar’s face, but focuses on his forehead, unable to make eye contact. Caspar’s hair lightly flutters against his forehead, grazes against his left eyebrow, casts his face in a slanted shadow. He watches Linhardt in return, waiting for an answer.

Linhardt takes in a deep breath, forces the tension from his body, feigning calm. “I’m sorry,” he manages, eyes flitting down to Caspar’s, then back up again to his forehead. “I was being rude. I’m being rude. I’m sorry.” 

And Linhardt finds himself floundering for words, because what he said wasn’t enough, isn’t enough, because he was being more than rude and Caspar deserves better, deserves kindness in return for his kindness, his acceptance, his _just being Caspar_. He wants to tell Caspar that _yes_ , he feels the exact same way, that he’s more interested in Caspar than he would ever like to admit, but his words are stuck in his head, in his heart, can’t find their way to his mouth, and he just wishes Caspar understood, understands that his feelings are shared. But he isn’t given the chance to say more, give more, because his words are already enough, he is already enough, more than enough for Caspar, who slings his arm around Linhardt’s shoulder, his grin back as quickly as it left.

“What’re you sorry for?” Caspar says with a laugh, pulling Linhardt along with him as he strolls toward North Hall. “I’m just glad we got all of that out of the way, you know? Man, I could _feel_ the tension coming from you, like you were just ready to burst with something to say. Definitely not what I was hoping for, but it’s out of the way now, right? Let’s go to the dining hall. I’m hungry.” 

“Wait—” Linhardt starts, but it’s no use, because Caspar has already redirected them toward the dining hall, his hair tickling Linhardt’s cheek in the process. Linhardt’s breath leaves him sharply, preventing him from speaking.

“Imagine if the dining hall closed at nine. I’d fight someone. Who stops serving food on a college campus at nine? Stupid cafe. That just wasn’t meant to be.” And his arm tightens around Linhardt, who wishes he could breathe normally again, but he’s awake, so awake, and he wonders if he’ll be able to sleep tonight. 


End file.
